People | George
Davis
Urban Design in Arid Regions
George Davis’ notes for a presentation on “Urban
Design in Arid Regions,” hosted by The University of Arizona’s
College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture”
May I take the title – “Design in Arid Regions” -
apart?
The pristine design elements of arid regions are really quite remarkable,
for erosion by wind and water etches the fundamental fabric; rock layering,
faults and fractures, dikes and intrusions.
Where arid regions are experiencing active tectonics, range fronts
are sharp and steep, and alluvial aprons coalesce in giant bahadas.
When arid regions lay dormant, tectonically,
the range fronts are pushed back into sinuous forms by headward erosion
along expansive rock-carved pediments, that in their own ways “apron” the
mountains. Incidentally, the State of Arizona is unique in portraying
on its license plates an image of a pediment.
The late afternoon and early evening light chisels
the etchings even further, enlarging to fuller view the fundamental
bedrock fabric of arid regions.
“Design in Arid Regions” – without adding “Urban” – attracts
farsightedness, long views, projections toward infinity, wide open
spaces. Once when I turned off my flashlight while dry camping
in sourthern Utah, I succeeded in extinguishing half the lights in
a 60 mile radius, ...such was the unhabitation, such was the unurbanization.
Adding water – in its many forms (my two favorites are waterpockets
and cienega) to the arid regions is like adding “jewels”,
but in the words of Criag Childs - "to ask for too much water
is to invite disaster.”
What does water mean to us in arid regions? We have a Tohono-Oodham
basket in our home...a large basket nearly a meter tall. The
motif is pelicans. Pelicans in the desert!? The indigenous
peoples of the desert, here, for millennia equated pelicans with the
coming of rain, ...pelicans blown far inboard by winter storms in the
Sea of Cortez.
Adding “Urban” to “Design in Arid Regions” becomes
a statement of responsibility, necessity, a statement of opportunity,
a political/economic statement, a challenge to stewardship of arid
regions.
I have thought a lot about adding “Urban” to “Design
in Arid Regions.” In the context of the Colorado Plateau,
my very favorite region of the world. In the heart of the Plateau,
the 1st and early 2nd millennium architecture of indigenous peoples
emerges seamlessly from geologic architecture. Water, shelter,
shade, aesthetics, security, proximities to essentials...all are in
harmony. Yet, encroachment of urban circumnavigations of and
penetrations into the Plateau are positioned like points on a compass
and spokes on a wheel. Start due south and moving clockwise: Phoenix,
Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Denver, Albuquerque, ...the circumnavigations. The
penetrations along fabric elements: Phoenix to Sedona to Flagstaff
to Page; Las Vegas to St. George; Salt Lake City to Provo to Price;
Denver to Grand Junction to Moab; Albuquerque to Gallup. You
can “hear” the invasion.
Given the religions that have emerged in arid
regions, I conclude that there is a sense of spirituality and sanctity
that is at stake when adding “Urban” to “Design
in Arid Land.”
How do we harness and adapt but not despoil? University of Arizona
for more than 100 years has prospered from the fecundity of desert
intellectual property, with great programs built from strategic advantages,
in Agriculture, Arid Lands Studies, geology, hydrology, anthropology,
astronomy, ecology and evolutionary biology, renewable natural resources,
to name some of the most obvious examples. We continue to build,
for example our recruitment of Paul Portney as Dean of the Eller College
of Management, Portney’s background being Executive Director
of Resources for the Future with its emphasis on natural resources,
environment, and economic sustainability.
Our CALA college is leading us to deepen our
appreciation of the study of land, water, and light through the application
of emerging technologies. The
study of land connects us with civil engineering, arid lands, and material
science. The study of water connects us with hydrology, agriculture,
water resources, and ecology. The study of light connects us
with electrical engineering, optical sciences, astronomy, and public
health. CALA is a critical partner in the land grant mission
of the university.
If I have a wish for the conference, it is that
the word “Community” becomes
implicit in the title. Urban Community Design in Arid Regions
calls attention to respectful attention to the needs of others beyond
our economic selves, thus underscoring our relationships to others
and the needs of others, whether the subject is health care, stewardship
of resources, traffic and transportation, civil rights, aesthetics,
safety and security, frontier freedoms and access to wilderness.
Finally the dimension of time and its rate of
play must play a role. The
counterparts are sluggish geological change juxtaposed by ballistic
missile rates of human impact, especially along special design corridors
of nature, such as the tight interface between pediment and mountain
front, which in Tucson is also the right location for burgeoning Sonoran
Desert vegetation. I know rate of change, geological and human. When
I came to Tucson in 1970, I was stunned to discover that the Catalinas
and Rincons had not been mapped in any detail geologically, for there
are no ore deposits in these complexes. I set to work mapping
every Tuesday and Thursday, all around the Rincons and in more of a
reconnaissance style along the front range of the Catalinas. I
was free as a hummingbird. Not so today. How does one today
penetrate the Urban Design of the Catalina Front range in this Arid
Region? This took only 35 years.
May your conference help lead us more effectively to 35 years from
now, here and elsewhere.
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